


Scratch-Offs and Loose Change

by ArtsyAfrodite



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gallavich, Gallavich AU, M/M, writer!Mickey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:12:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtsyAfrodite/pseuds/ArtsyAfrodite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey knows people are layers of skin, three according to anatomy, but there are those who develop extra, maybe for protection, or simply to hide.  Eventually, some grope with oil-slicked hands at epiphanies and decide to sloppily shed the unnecessary layers, while others have no choice but to hold on desperately to what they still have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scratch-Offs and Loose Change

Like a scratch-off with the ‘ _etch and scrape, etch and scrape’_  of the quarter, it happened to him.  Chicago’s south side.  In a room after a scrap.  His body weight held down adolescent hip bones pressed into a twin mattress, and somewhere between a strike and knowing stare, he wasn’t so sure about who he was anymore – who he pretended to be.  It was a gradual grating of the surface, a cautious, unhurried act in anticipation of what was beneath, and if you ever asked him, he would lie and say the first time he shed his skin wasn’t because he saw flashes of red and a glimmer of green on that stupid freckled face.  Regardless, he took his chances and let it happen, despite him never being a gambler.  Because win or lose, it was a gamble; a loss being a disappointment, a win yielding an unforeseen prize.  Luckily for him it was a win, the prize simply being able to live another day. As he laid covered and not alone, he was exposed, vowing to never let another layer go.

Mickey knows people are layers of skin, three according to anatomy, but there are those who develop extra, maybe for protection, or simply to hide.  Eventually, some grope with oil-slicked hands at epiphanies and decide to sloppily shed the unnecessary layers, while others have no choice but to hold on desperately to what they still have.  For the latter it becomes a thing of survival.  Mickey was smart and held on to what he had left because he only wanted to survive.  Call him selfish, but altruism didn’t mix well with abuse and was a concept more foreign to him than reading brail – and some could say he’d been blind until Ian.   _Whatever._   He refused to buy it, so he told himself fuck what everyone else was selling.  All he wanted to do was  _live._

Yet, he went about picking up loose change to continue the ‘ _etch and scrape, etch and scrape,’_  removing his surfaces like a scratch-off.  It was a messy process though, matter falling everywhere.  But Ian was always there,  _always,_  picking up the pieces of him and cradling them in the palms of his hands.  He always needed Mickey there, resting in the slight roughness and lines as he told him he was ok and there was nothing to be ashamed of.  And with each rendezvous Mickey’s head ached with too many doubts because there was always  _this_  gamble.  He lost once, but still managed to get something in return.  It was a 2-for-1 deal with a pistol whipping and a serenade of,  _“She’s gonna fuck the faggot outta ya kid.”_ To cover the bruises, he grew an extra layer, so it was minus one for what he managed to already shed.  Ian tugged as hard as he could at it, but Mickey couldn’t even look at him, too ashamed – too broken.

He grew sick of this fucked up game of chance.  He had far too many layers of skin and the loose change he picked up off of the dirty south side sidewalks was beginning to fall through the cracks.  So Mickey wrote, and in a way, confessed and released.  Ian didn’t know he became a secret writer, his own way to continue to cope with the things he never talked about yet endured nonetheless.  So here it was,  _Scratch-Offs and Loose Change,_ his very own catharsis in soft and hard covers and filled with his very own  _guides to recognizing your saints_ and  _Joe the kings._ The countless nights Mickey watched his two favorite movies, pining and more than likely bruised, he always became the protagonists.  Who would have thought – a Milkovich becoming a writer?  Mickey was his own worst critic, and if it wasn’t for having his own personal cheerleader, he would have snapped his pen in two a long time ago.  Even then, Ian would always have extra, not knowing he did.

So five years later, here Mickey was, watching Ian watching  _him,_ belly down on  _their_ bed in  _their_ apartment.  They’d left the south side long ago, just picked up and left.  But truth be told, Chicago never left them.  It was still in their eyes, the shadows always in their backgrounds, the residual pain in the lines their smiles made in the corners of their eyes.  And no matter how different the scenery, they walked the new sidewalks of California with old paintings of their home tucked tightly underneath their arms because they would never let it go.  They would simply let it  _be_.  And when Mickey would feel the need to, he would just as easily write it all down, Ian his beta – his partner. 

It was a long, arduous journey for Mickey, always scavenging, always scratching.  He would convince himself that he just wanted to live, when in fact he was doing just the opposite. 

With Ian is where his life began, and now, he no longer needs coins.  

**Author's Note:**

> This is very random and I got the idea from watching someone buy a scratch-off (yes I did). I tied it into my idea of writer!Mickey, which I plan to write more of in the future - just need a solid story line. In the meantime, I did this thing. :)


End file.
